Mountain Pass Shrine Battle Map - Launch

Hello Adventurers! I’ve been working hard all week to get this done for the end of the month. It's a travel encounter map I’ve had in mind for a while. A Mountain Pass Shrine is a small shrine you might see on a lonely trail or dangerous mountain pass. Just a little place to say a prayer to the local spirits for safe passage. I added a few places for unique offerings, like notes, pennies, food, knots and a prayer wheel.

Next Maps

I’ll be creating a Schoolhouse next, along with a Geode Cave (Crystal Cave) later in the month.

• Traditional Schoolhouse (with a magical flare)
  I like the idea of using something like this as a real flavour location. Think old-style desks, a playground outside, and some other themed rooms, but with a hint of magic school.
• Geode Cave (Crystal Cave)
  I think a cave covered in crystals would be a cool location and be something new for me to create. Should be useful for boss fights in general.

Thanks so much for your support! I’d like to make some more fantastical locations in the coming weeks, so please do throw some unique and whimsical suggestions my way! Have a wonderful week and as always happy adventuring! Now let's stop at this shrine and say our prayers for the dangerous journey. Can someone watch the Rogue? He’s been eyeing the offerings since we arrived.

As always you can find the files to download on the Map List page here. Remember you have to be a Patron and signed in for the links to work.

Map Descriptions

The trail winds up the cliffside, its edges crumbling into the gorge below. Ahead the trail seems to widen, and off to the side is an opening in the cliff. A few stone steps lead off the trail into a nook sheltering a small shrine from the wind. Just a few carved stones and an altar nestle against the cliff’s face.

The altar is weatherworn, a mix of stone and wood. Symbols are carved on its surface while long ribbons of cloth flutter in the wind attached to pillars of wood surrounding it. On the altar are offerings, bones, coins and keepsakes brought here by pilgrims, prayers to the spirits that protect this place.

Notes and Tips

• 30x30 Grid Map
• This small shrine could be used as a final destination for a quest, a place to leave an offering to help with something to come, or simply a piece of flavour on a journey.
• Angry Spirits: Travellers must make an offering or the spirits will be displeased! If the party walks past the shine without leaving an offering the cliffs shake and a single dark figure with long red hair blowing in the wind appears on the trail behind them. It is an angry spirit of the mountain. Call it a variant of a banshee or Ghost. It could have a dread voice or a wailing cry.
• Yeti Offerings: The party notices a large dark figure knelt in front of the shrine, if they get close enough to make it out, it stands up and turns around. It's a Yeti and either it's making an offering of its own, or maybe it's stealing from the shrine. It is unclear what it’s doing. The party has been told this shrine is sacred to the mountain spirits and letting harm come to it is very bad.
• The Dragons Eye: A holy stone sits on the shrine's altar. Sacred to the locals, the rumour is this is a powerful artefact connected to a long-dead elder dragon. If the players touch the stone the cliffs begin to tremble and a dragon’s roar thunders overhead. This ‘call’ attracts local wyverns to the shrine to protect the stone.
• Pilgrim’s Plight: A group of Pilgrims gather around the shrine fighting off bandits who are trying to steal their meagre offerings. It doesn’t have to be bandits, it could be Yetis or any other mountain creature.

Variants

As always we have Day/Night and Lit versions of all the maps.

We also have a winter/snow version for those high-altitude hobbit freezing passes!

A desert version for those sand-in-your-pants campaigns!

And a coastal/ocean version for the pirates among us!